A speed increase in the central processing unit of a computer requires a correspondingly elevated speed in the terminal high speed printer.
This will in turn result in a requirement for a higher speed for the feeding of ink ribbon necessary for printing in such high speed printer. Such ink ribbon feed is typically realized by means of a cartridge as shown in FIG. 1, wherein an endless ink ribbon is accomodated in a folded and stacked state. Said cartridge is composed of a casing 2 of a thickness comparable to the width of said endless ink ribbon 1, is provided with a curved portion 3 on the upper part thereof and an inlet slit 5 and outlet slit 4 for said ink ribbon on both sides of said curved portion and is further provided internally with curved surfaces at the sides and at the corners thereof in order to facilitate the displacement of said ink ribbon in folded state. Further inside said inlet slit there is provided a pair of ink ribbon intake rollers 6, 7 which hold the ink ribbon there between whereby said endless ink ribbon 1 is fed from the outlet slit 4 and pulled into said cartridge by means of the rotation of said roller 6.
Such cartridge in which the endless ink ribbon accomodated therein in folded state is continuously advanced in a direction by means of said feed rollers, is advantageous in the simple drive mechanism thereof but is associated with a difficulty to load a new endless ink ribbon which tends to spread out and cannot be easily accommodated in a neatly folded and stacked state.